Last-Minute Christmas Gift: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough

1 hour of making cookie dough

+

1 hour of packaging

+

6 bags chocolate chips

+

8 lbs butter

+

red baker's twine

=

easy and cute gifts for friends

and neighbors

Click HERE for all the details.

Peppermint Oreo Pops

Follow our elf Pinocchio to Lulu the Baker and find out how to make the cutest holiday food on a stick!

Apron Give-Away!

In addition to all of the cute things we listed in the shop last week, we've added some flirty, ruffled aprons. And we're giving one away this week on Lulu the Baker (my food blog).  In September, I posted a recipe for one of my family's favorite dinners, Cheesy Chowder, and it has been cookin' up a storm on Pinterest ever since!  To celebrate it's success, we're giving away one of our brand new aprons!  You can find the give-away HERE, and the recipe HERE (I promise, you'll love it!).

Happy Thanksgiving--Do You Want Pies With That?

click HERE to see some of our family favorites:
caramel apple cheesecake pie
sawdust pie
apple slab pie
lemon blueberry buttermilk pie
sour cherry pie with pistachio crumble
pumpkin chiffon pie
&
coconut custard pie

Teacher Appreciation Gift--Last Minute (Is there any other kind?)

We were at Costco this afternoon for what has strangely become a new family tradition--Monday lunch at the Costco snack bar. We ran into lots of people we knew, and one friend mentioned that she had just come from dropping off a teacher appreciation gift at preschool. And that is where I smacked myself on the forehead because I once again forgot teacher appreciation day! I do this every year. Luckily, we had a couple of packs of those oh-so-delicious Costco muffins in the cart, and about as quickly as I smacked myself for forgetting, I forgave myself because I came up with a plan for an easy, last-minute-but-sure-to-please gift for our preschool teacher and teacher's aide.

Here are the directions: 1) After buying the muffins, go to Starbucks on your way home from Costco and buy a $5 gift card for each teacher. 2) Place a Costco muffin--any flavor--in a small bag and tie bag shut with ribbon, baker's twine, etc. 3) Make sure the gift card is taped into the totally not secure Starbucks gift card envelope, then close up the envelope and punch a hole in one corner. 4) Tie the envelope to the muffin bag with the aforementioned ribbon or twine.

So this entire gift, which I happen to think is pretty darn good, took about 10 minutes of effort total. And who doesn't like Costco double chocolate muffins?!

Mini Spinach Dip Bread Bowls from Picky Palate

Back in January, right around Super Bowl time, Jenny from Picky Palate started posting finger foods and appetizers in anticipation of the big football game. One of her new creations was these amazing little baked bread bowls filled with homemade spinach dip. They looked delicious, so I made a mental note to make them sometime. And then I never made them! But I kept thinking about them a lot, pretty much every time an occasion came up that would at all call for party foods. I considered making them this week for bookclub, then decided to make something else. And then two days before our get-together, they popped up on Oh Joy!, and I took it as a sign from the culinary gods that I was not supposed to ignore these babies any longer!

They are super simple to make, and taste heavenly. I think I probably ate a fourth of them myself! They are delicious as an appetizer or finger food, but if you served them with a salad and some fruit, they would also be great for brunch. Instead of making full-sized muffins, I followed Joy's lead and made mini muffins. I followed all of the directions from the original recipe, but cut each piece of dough into three smaller pieces before pressing them into the muffin cups and obviously used a smaller scoop to add the filling. I'm getting hungry just thinking about them; if only I hadn't eaten all the leftovers when I got home!

Visit Picky Palate to get the recipe!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

So far, we've feasted on Lucky Charms for breakfast, and kiwi, green applesauce, pickles, and sandwiches for lunch. The kids and I are wearing our brightest green shirts and a few green plastic bowler hats, we delivered potted shamrocks to our friends, and we have plans to watch Darby O'Gill and the Little People this evening (as soon as it arrives from Amazon). And we can't wait for our traditional St. Patty's Day dinner, an Irish Fry (fried eggs, home fries, toasted english muffins with butter, breakfast sausage, and baked beans), accompanied by watergate salad (simply because it's green) and a delicious--if not entirely healthy--green punch concoction. What are your St. Patrick's Day traditions?

Birthday Cake Boxes

I turned another year older a few weeks ago, and to celebrate, I delivered slices of birthday cake to a few of my friends. Last year, my friend Marcelle took slices of her favorite cake, flourless chocolate cake, in chinese take-out boxes to some of her friends. Such a fun idea to give friends a little bit of celebration on your big day (especially when you are a grown-up and no one is throwing you a huge birthday bash every year)! And last Fall, I spotted adorable DIY slice-of-pie boxes on Stephmodo that I knew I had to do something with. At some point it occurred to me to combine both ideas, and voila! Birthday Cake boxes!

I came up with a quick template (well, it should have been quick, but I'm a dunce when it comes to Illustrator, so it took a while!), printed a bunch out on my kraft cardstock, cut, and taped. I made a really good, vanilla buttermilk cake with vanilla frosting and rainbow sprinkles, boxed up the slices, and delivered them! It was so much fun! Happy Birthday to me!

Click HERE to download the template. The assembled boxes will fit cake slices from a 1- or 2-layer 8" round cake that has been cut into at least 12 pieces. And click HERE if you'd like the recipe for the Vanilla Buttermilk Cake!

Print out as many boxes as you'll need on cardstock.

Cut on the solid lines.

Fold on the dotted lines. A bone folder would work nicely here, but I can never find mine when I need it, so I just used my fingernails.

Use double-sided tape to attach the overlapping flaps to the sides of the box.

Do this one first, then wait until you've slid the piece of cake into position to do the other two. Just trust me on that one. ;)

All done!

Christmas Cookie Plate

If you are looking for our giveaway, scroll down to the next post, or click HERE.

I think there is no Christmas sweet quite as iconic as the Christmas cookie. When we were little, we always made cookies for our friends and neighbors and delivered them on Christmas Eve. Over the years, we've added a few new stars to the line-up, but our favorites remain unchanged. Click HERE to see a few of our favorite Christmas cookies, the recipes we return to year

after year.

You can also see a list of our favorite holiday treats to share and a list of our favorite savory snacks!

Holiday Treats to Share

Giving homemade treats to friends and neighbors during the Holidays is one of my favorite things about this time of year. It's easier on the wallet than store-bought gifts, and the time and effort that go into making a gift for someone show a level of caring that is far greater. Growing up, we always gave cookie plates (tune in next week for some of our favorite Holiday cookie recipes), but in the past few years, we've tried to be extra creative with our homemade treats. Click HERE to see what we've given, gotten, and gobbled up!

Happy December 1st! and Savory Holiday Snacks

When I was little, my mom threw us a little party on the first of December every year. We divvied up the Christmas decorations, ate festive snacks, did little holiday projects, and were officially allowed to start singing Christmas songs. It is a tradition I have continued with my own children, and one that I look forward to every year. Today, we have plans to bake Molasses Crinkles (one of the best holiday cookies ever--promise), decorate little foam gingerbread houses, make an advent calendar AND a red and green paper chain, and possibly watch a Christmas movie or two!

Now that the holidays are in full swing, I thought it would be fun to share some of our favorite holiday recipes each week throughout the month. This week, we'll focus on

I have a major sweet tooth, but I also love me some salt. Click HERE to see just a few of my most favorite savory holiday snacks.

Annie's French Baby Shower

So Annie--of birthday party fame--is just a little pregnant, and as a result, a baby shower was in order. Neither Annie nor I has any real connection to France; neither of us has ever been there, neither of us speaks the language. But who doesn't want to throw a French-themed party?!

lots of black and white striped ribbon

It was a huge hit! From the invitations to the decor, from the food to the favors, Annie's French Baby Shower was une bonne fete!

tarragon chicken salad with almonds served on baguettes; mini quiche; crudites


caramel apple napoleons; mini chocolate pots de creme; mini chocolate croissants


raspberry-almond french macarons


pear-walnut-goat cheese salad


sparkling pink lemonade


handmade dotted-swiss sachets filled with lavender buds; ignore the backyard--I realized after the baby shower that I had forgotten to clean up the yard!

In addition to eating and opening presents, we played a fun--although challenging--game where the lyrics of popular lullabies and children's songs were written in French, and we had to guess the song titles. Our only French speaker got 17 out of 18 right, and our best non-French-speaking score was 13 out of 18. Not too bad!

Apple Season!

At our house, it is officially apple season, one of my favorite times of the year. We don't have a big backyard, but my amateur farmer husband has crammed a tiny orchard and several raised beds into the spare corners. Our orchard consists of some fairly unproductive cherry trees, a peach that is half-dead, an apricot and italian plum that look beautiful but don't give any fruit, and one 4-way dwarf apple that makes up for its lazy friends by producing bushel after bushel of delicious apples. In honor of our small-but-mighty apple tree, here are some apple favorites!

BOOKS

Apple Farmer Annie by Monica Wellington
One of our favorite Fall books, and one that we keep reading all year long.

Ten Apples Up On Top by Theo. Lesieg
Very funny.


Apples To Oregon by Deborah Hopkinson
Lovely illustrations and a cute story, especially for those of us in the Pacific Northwest.

BAKING


Fresh Apple Cake with Brown Sugar Glaze


Aunt Shelley's Butterscotch Apple Dip


Pumpkin Apple Streusel Cake


Apple Orchard Pecan Crumble


Banana Apple Bread


Chunky Applesauce


Caramel Apple Turnovers with Sweet Ricotta Filling

Annie's Big 3-0: the food

Food is always my favorite part of any celebration! And, despite the fact that I'm not a seafood lover, the food was definitely a highlight of Annie's party.

The Menu

Sparkling Meyer Lemon and Fuji Apple Juices
Bergenost, Brie, and Herbed Boursin Cheeses with an assortment of Crackers
Grapes
Sweet Potato Fries with Crushed Rosemary and Kosher Salt
Field Greens, Dried Cranberries, Sugared Almonds, and Feta dressed with Balsamic Vinaigrette
Buttered Rolls
Seafood Boil with New Potatoes, Corn on the Cob, Smoked Sausage, Crab Legs, and Shrimp
Individual Tart Cherry Crumb Cakes with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

The food was a mixture of ready-made, prepared the night before, and cooked on the spot. The juices came from World Market, and were both beautifully bottled and delicious. The cheeses, crackers, and grapes all came from Costco and needed minimal preparation, as did the buttered rolls and salad. The Cherry Crumb Cakes were quite a bit of work, but they were made the night before, cooled, and wrapped tightly in plastic wrap. They only needed to plated, drizzled with glaze, and topped with ice cream at the party. The sweet potato fries and seafood boil were the only things we really had to make right then and there while guests were mingling and munching on appetizers.

After experimenting a little with homemade sweet potato fries and getting disappointing results, we finally decided to buy Alexia Foods' frozen Sweet Potato Fries from Costco instead. We gave them a quick fry on a propane camp stove, tossed them with crushed, dried rosemary and kosher salt, and devoured them. They were an amazing combination of sweet, savory, and salty, and infinitely better than the ones I tried to make at home!

My husband decided to start frying our turkeys for Thanksgiving a few years ago, so we have a huge propane burner and enormous stock pot with a strainer, all of which came in very handy for the seafood boil. We seasoned the water with McCormick's Shrimp Boil seasoning, a few quartered onions and some lemon slices, added new potatoes, and brought it to a boil. Then we added Hillshire Farms Beef Smoked Sausage that had been cut into 2" pieces and a few pounds of crab legs. That's about all we could fit for the first round of cooking. **An aside: from the start, Annie had her heart set on a seafood boil, but wanted the party to be a little fancier than cooked seafood poured directly onto the table, so we decided to put the seafood into trays to serve it. The trays had to be large enough to fit quite a bit of seafood, yet small enough to fit on the table without having to clear off plates and centerpieces, and low enough that they wouldn't prevent conversation. While researching the possibility of metal garbage can lids at Home Depot, we discovered galvanized metal trays that are 16" wide and only 4" deep. Lined with a few sheets of white freezer paper, they made perfect seafood boil servers.** When the first batch of food was done, we divided the potatoes, sausage, and crab legs among the four metal serving trays and set them aside while cooking the second batch of food. Since it was just shrimp and corn on the cob, we knew it would only take a few minutes to cook and that everything would stay hot. Once all the food was cooked and divided among the serving trays, we sprinkled a little Slap Yo Mama Cajun Seasoning on top and set them out. We strategically placed a few small dishes containing lemon slices, spicy mustard, salt and pepper, and Old Bay seasoning around the table and let people go for it. And did they ever! The crab legs were a last minute addition, so we didn't have any claw crackers or whatever you use to eat crab legs. People just whacked at them with their spoons and sent bits of shell everywhere. It was pretty entertaining!